Rhyannon Byrd - Last Wolf Hunting

“I’m going to need my truck in Shadow Peak, but I felt like walking tonight, so I parked down below the rise and hiked with Cian the rest of the way to the clearing, instead of going into town first. Dylan called earlier to let me know there would be a challenge tonight,” he explained, slanting her a dark look, “but he didn’t mention who’d be fighting.”

She arched one brow, determined to ignore the frustrating way the silvery moonlight glinted so perfectly off the burnished gold of his hair, making her want to reach out and bury her fingers in the warm, silken threads. “He probably thought you wouldn’t care.”

“ Right .” He snuffled a soft laugh under his breath, as if she’d said something funny, and Jillian struggled not to flinch from the provocative heat of his stare. His eyes had always been too mesmerizing for his own good—not to mention hers. The one time she’d allowed herself to be conned by those hazy swirls of green surrounded by thick, amber-colored lashes, she’d paid the price of a broken heart. But now she knew better. Knew better than to trust the promises swimming in their glowing depths.

He stepped closer, grinning a little when she took a hasty step back, as if he knew what it cost her to be near him. The way he moved should have been outlawed. All long muscles and masculine grace, like a predator—like something on the hunt for its prey. His head tilted the tiniest fraction as he watched her, and it was a heady sensation, standing at the focus of all that blistering male intensity. For a brief moment, Jillian wondered just how close his wolf was to the surface, how close to the edge he’d been pushed.

“Do I make you nervous?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, acutely aware of just how little clothing she was wearing. “Why would you make me nervous?” she drawled sarcastically, arching her brows. “It’s not like you’ve brought me here against my will or anything.”

A slow, crooked kind of smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “You can keep trying to taunt me, but it won’t matter.” He blew out a slow breath, looking like a wicked, golden god of a man as he just stood there, staring down at her. “I hadn’t planned on any of this, but tonight seems to have knocked some sense into me. Now that I’m back, we’ve got to deal with what’s between us.” He paused, rubbing one hand over his stubbled jaw, the gently rasping sound easily heard against the soft quiet of the forest. “We’re not leaving here until we’ve talked this out, Jillian. But first, I want to know why you agreed to fight those challenges.”

She hated that she had to control the urge to stomp her foot like a frustrated child. “Why? Because I didn’t have a choice. I’ve never wanted to fight the stupid things, but your never-ending list of past lovers just pushed and pushed, until the Elders ordered me to accept!”

“So it’s true then, that the League made you fight. Elise thinks they’re punishing you.”

Her gaze skittered away. “Maybe.”

“Because of one kiss?” he asked, his tone skeptical.

“It seems they knew me well enough to know what that kiss signified.” She jerked her gaze back to his face, hoping he could see just how angry he made her. “They knew I’d decided to put my trust in you, despite their warnings and threats. And it took all but a few hours for you to go running off with Danna, proving just how stupid I’d been to believe in you!”

“So they make you accept those ridiculous challenges, risking your life.” She watched him work to master his emotions. After a moment, he quietly said, “That’s some punishment, Jillian. I’m surprised you just lie down and take it, or are you still terrified of disappointing them?”

“I have no choice in the matter. Whenever I try to refuse, they consider it a show of weakness.” She sighed, still rankled over the League’s insistence that she meet the challenges. “And we can’t have any weak links in the chain of power, Jeremy.”

“God forbid you actually stand up to them,” he said with soft menace.

Her chin lifted a notch higher. “Unlike you, I have respect for the League.”

He brushed that frustrating topic to the side with the sweep of his hand, and chose another argument. “Why do you suppose no one ever told me you were fighting? I can understand the pack’s silence, since I avoid them like the plague and they probably wouldn’t waste their breath talking to me, but what about Dylan? What about my parents?”

Jillian shook her head, wondering why he didn’t get it. “There’s no conspiracy, Jeremy. Your parents have spent so much time away, I doubt they even know. And like I said, Dylan probably didn’t say anything because he knows you couldn’t care less about what happens to me.”

His jaw locked, and a cutting flash of frustration ripped across his rugged features, before quickly disappearing, as if he’d thrown the emotion into some mental vault and slammed the door. “This argument is going nowhere,” he rasped, looking away to stare up at the star-studded sky.

A moment of silence deepened between them as he gazed at the stars, his expression intent, as if looking for answers in their shimmering lights, and Jillian seized the opportunity to study him, to soak in all the breathtaking details that made her tremble with physical awareness. In the decade since he’d left Shadow Peak, he’d grown from someone with boyish charm and golden good looks, to a man who overshadowed everyone around him. He was that dynamic, his aura blinding and burning with intensity. A man who drew your eye and trapped it, with that blond, sun-bleached hair, dark golden skin and those smoky hazel eyes, his body battle-hardened and beautiful, the chiseled features of his face too masculine to be called anything but rugged. She even loved the strong column of his throat, with its fading scars, and the blond stubble on his cheeks and chin.

“We should have hashed this out between us before I came back, Jillian.”

The deep, provocative timbre of his voice hit her as heavily as the breathtaking power of his scent, making her burn from the inside out, as if she’d swallowed a smoldering ball of fire that now glowed in her belly, shooting like incandescent sparks through her fingers and her toes. Lighting her up. Turning her on.

She swallowed, struggling for her voice. “And just when were we supposed to do that?” she asked, mentally wincing at the husky sound of lust rounding out the edges of her speech.

His gaze lowered, those enigmatic eyes going dark, filled with thickening shadows. “We could have done it at the reception.”

Jillian knew he was referring to his partner’s wedding, which had taken place just days before—and where his return to the pack had first been announced. They’d spent the entire night avoiding one another, though she’d snuck glances at him as often as possible, unable to help herself. And it still irritated her that no one in the League had thought to inform her of what was coming that night, leaving her to learn of his return in a crowd of people, all of whom had watched her with avid interest when the news was announced. “Yeah, that would have been swell, but I really thought I’d had enough good news that day,” she replied with a small, tight laugh, terrified at the knowledge that every moment she spent with him was breaking her down, weakening her resolve. He was like Kryptonite to her Superman, that one fatal weakness that could change her life forever by systemically stripping her defenses.

“Jillian…” he sighed, sounding as if she was trying his patience “…whether we want it or not, I’m back. I’m here and we have to face the facts.”

“Somehow,” she muttered, “I don’t think my facts are the same as yours.”